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Actually, you need to decide what Wikipedia is. An episode of CSI should not be detailed in an encyclopedia. Do you really think that Wikipedia is the best poss

Actually, you need to decide what Wikipedia is. An episode of CSI should not be detailed in an encyclopedia. Do you really think that Wikipedia is the best possible place to display that content on the whole internet? I'm not saying that Wikia is much better, but at least it is targeted to the fans of the TV show. So much of this "It's information so it should be on Wikipedia" appears to be driven by ego, rather than what is good for the reader.

hnha 12y ago
I would prefer Wikipedia to have information on everything. Why shouldn't it?
wpietri 12y ago
Why shouldn't an episode of CSI be detailed? I'm an (inactive) Wikipedia admin, and that meets my criteria. I don't care at all about the show, but it's factual material that can be described neutrally from reliable sources and verified by anybody who cares to take the time. It's also the kind of thing that people provably refer to. More broadly, I think pop-culture topics are great material for Wikipedia because they serve as a gateway to deeper editing. Most people find editing Wikipedia intimidating. But if you ask, "Hey, can you improve something about the article on your favorite show?" that's a lot less scary, because a) they're comfortable with the material, and b) it's pop culture, so they're not as worried about getting it wrong.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Some shows do have that level of coverage. Look at The Sopranos, for instance. So it's useful to compare The Sopranos to CSI. One difference that is apparent to me is that for any episode of the Sopranos, encyclopedia editors have a much richer body of source material to draw on. Gateways to editing are good, but gateways to "original research" editing are just painful for the whole project; also, if you attract someone to an editing task and them smack them over the head with how they're doing it wrong, you've probably lost that editor forever. Just a thought. I'm not sure about the distinction between CSI and The Sopranos.
ams6110 12y ago
Why do there need to be limits on what topics Wikipedia addresses? Is it somehow wrong for your local public library's reference section to have a book about the CSI television series? If not, why is it not OK for Wikipedia to have that content?
- tptacek 12y ago
  It depends. One rule of thumb you can find in the Television WikiProject, and on the "Wikipedia:NOT" page, is that articles about individual episodes are "encyclopedic" when the project can add analysis and context to the episode. But the overriding rules of WP demand that analysis and context be reliably verifiable; you can't do original research on WP, and so you can't use WP articles as an alternative to a Television Without Pity forum recap post. If most CSI episodes are so ephemeral that there simply isn't enough context to add to them to make them full-fledged encyclopedia articles, than the project strongly suggests that the episodes be folded into aggregate articles --- first a "Season N of CSI" article, and potentially just an omnibus article about the whole show. What's different about Wikia is that Wikia wikis don't shoulder the burden of delivering a single coherent resource. You can use a Wikia wiki to host recaps of every episode of CSI, written by enthusiasts as primary source original research on the actual site; moreover, you can stub out every episode of CSI on a Wikia wiki without, in effect, making a statement for the world about how the encyclopedia will cover CSI.
saraid216 12y ago
> Do you really think that Wikipedia is the best possible place to display that content on the whole internet? That's not a very good question. The best possible place to display that content is obviously reproducing the episode itself as part of an archive so that it can be reviewed by anyone who sees a citation of it. But that presumes the question is valid, which it isn't: why must there be only one best possible place to display the content? The Internet does not require unique instances of content; displaying it in one place does not mean it cannot be displayed in another. There are valid reasons to delete. If Wikipedia is unable to handle the storage requirements, that is a good reason to delete. Demoting an article because it's not a secondary source is reasonable. "I don't understand why this should be on Wikipedia" is not a valid reason to remove it.
- sparkzilla 12y ago
  Just because there is space to write about something, does not mean that readers want to read it in that format. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia's policies and software are not built to handle the data surrounding TV shows (as just one example). Even Wikia handles secondary information like news and gossip (which are important information for people who are interested in the show) better. It is, in fact, the inclusionists who are saying that there is only one place to view the content -- the want everything on Wikipedia. The original comment I replied to said that the intention is to create the "sum of all knowledge". Trying to shoehorn everything into Wikipedia, into formats that the information not designed for, devalues the focus and content of the encyclopedic topics, and makes it harder for better quality content elsewhere on the web to get attention.

hnha 12y ago

I would prefer Wikipedia to have information on everything. Why shouldn't it?

wpietri 12y ago

Why shouldn't an episode of CSI be detailed? I'm an (inactive) Wikipedia admin, and that meets my criteria. I don't care at all about the show, but it's factual material that can be described neutrally from reliable sources and verified by anybody who cares to take the time. It's also the kind of thing that people provably refer to. More broadly, I think pop-culture topics are great material for Wikipedia because they serve as a gateway to deeper editing. Most people find editing Wikipedia intimidating. But if you ask, "Hey, can you improve something about the article on your favorite show?" that's a lot less scary, because a) they're comfortable with the material, and b) it's pop culture, so they're not as worried about getting it wrong.

tptacek 12y ago
Some shows do have that level of coverage. Look at The Sopranos, for instance. So it's useful to compare The Sopranos to CSI. One difference that is apparent to me is that for any episode of the Sopranos, encyclopedia editors have a much richer body of source material to draw on. Gateways to editing are good, but gateways to "original research" editing are just painful for the whole project; also, if you attract someone to an editing task and them smack them over the head with how they're doing it wrong, you've probably lost that editor forever. Just a thought. I'm not sure about the distinction between CSI and The Sopranos.

ams6110 12y ago

Why do there need to be limits on what topics Wikipedia addresses? Is it somehow wrong for your local public library's reference section to have a book about the CSI television series? If not, why is it not OK for Wikipedia to have that content?

tptacek 12y ago
It depends. One rule of thumb you can find in the Television WikiProject, and on the "Wikipedia:NOT" page, is that articles about individual episodes are "encyclopedic" when the project can add analysis and context to the episode. But the overriding rules of WP demand that analysis and context be reliably verifiable; you can't do original research on WP, and so you can't use WP articles as an alternative to a Television Without Pity forum recap post. If most CSI episodes are so ephemeral that there simply isn't enough context to add to them to make them full-fledged encyclopedia articles, than the project strongly suggests that the episodes be folded into aggregate articles --- first a "Season N of CSI" article, and potentially just an omnibus article about the whole show. What's different about Wikia is that Wikia wikis don't shoulder the burden of delivering a single coherent resource. You can use a Wikia wiki to host recaps of every episode of CSI, written by enthusiasts as primary source original research on the actual site; moreover, you can stub out every episode of CSI on a Wikia wiki without, in effect, making a statement for the world about how the encyclopedia will cover CSI.

saraid216 12y ago

> Do you really think that Wikipedia is the best possible place to display that content on the whole internet? That's not a very good question. The best possible place to display that content is obviously reproducing the episode itself as part of an archive so that it can be reviewed by anyone who sees a citation of it. But that presumes the question is valid, which it isn't: why must there be only one best possible place to display the content? The Internet does not require unique instances of content; displaying it in one place does not mean it cannot be displayed in another. There are valid reasons to delete. If Wikipedia is unable to handle the storage requirements, that is a good reason to delete. Demoting an article because it's not a secondary source is reasonable. "I don't understand why this should be on Wikipedia" is not a valid reason to remove it.

sparkzilla 12y ago
Just because there is space to write about something, does not mean that readers want to read it in that format. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia's policies and software are not built to handle the data surrounding TV shows (as just one example). Even Wikia handles secondary information like news and gossip (which are important information for people who are interested in the show) better. It is, in fact, the inclusionists who are saying that there is only one place to view the content -- the want everything on Wikipedia. The original comment I replied to said that the intention is to create the "sum of all knowledge". Trying to shoehorn everything into Wikipedia, into formats that the information not designed for, devalues the focus and content of the encyclopedic topics, and makes it harder for better quality content elsewhere on the web to get attention.